The emails arrive on an almost hourly basis from the Trump campaign. They are part victory lap and part fundraising drive, throwing around all-caps as they celebrate the extraordinary results of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s effort to propel a COVID-19 vaccine to market in record time.
“This is UNPRECEDENTED success, and it’s all because of OUR President, who tore down bureaucracy, regulations, and barriers to deliver a safe and effective vaccine for YOU,” said one. “Radical Democrats and their allies in the LYING media can’t stand the thought of America SUCCEEDING under President Trump.”
It followed the announcement this week that Moderna’s vaccine had been more than 94% effective in trials. It was backed by Warp Speed to the tune of about $2 billion.
A week earlier, Pfizer, which did not take federal money under Operation Warp Speed but did agree to a $1.95 billion distribution arrangement with the federal government for 100 million doses, announced similarly impressive results for its candidate immunization.
The numbers immediately raised the prospect that a vaccine could be given emergency authorization and be in use before the end of the year.
The dose of optimism could not come at a more pivotal time. COVID-19 cases are surging around the country, and President Trump’s decision not to accept the presidential election result means there is no transition yet to President-elect Joe Biden and his incoming administration, bringing the very real risks of lost time and missed opportunities.
And Moderna is only the start of Warp Speed products. Johnson & Johnson and England-based AstraZeneca are expected to have the interim results of their vaccines in a matter of weeks.
As Trump put it in the White House Rose Garden last week: “The average development timeline for the vaccine, including clinical tests and manufacturing, can take eight to 12 years. Through Operation Warp Speed, we’re doing it in less than one year.
“If you had a different administration with different people, what we’ve done would have taken, in my opinion, three, four, five years, and it would have been in the FDA forever.”
His celebration was premature. He was taking credit for the Pfizer vaccine, which was not part of Warp Speed, although it did benefit from a $1.95 billion purchase agreement from the Trump administration.
It is not difficult to see why he was so keen to trumpet the achievement. Almost 250,000 people have died from COVID-19, and his handling of the pandemic was cited by many voters as a reason for backing Biden in the election.
Even critics admit that the program slashed lead times for vaccine development.
“You have to give him credit,” said Dr. Peter Hotez of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and who is working on an immunization that recently entered clinical trials in India. “Operation Warp Speed happened on his watch.”
It comes too late to influence this year’s election, much to the fury of Trump and his allies who have pondered aloud whether data announcements were delayed to thwart their reelection hopes, but insiders say they see future political benefits.
“Even his critics have to admit it’s an extraordinary result because it is an extraordinary result,” said a former administration official. “He has every right to trumpet the achievement, and if he is serious about running in 2024, it allows him an achievement that might overshadow the flaws in his handling of the pandemic.”
But those critics awkwardly point out that the vaccine announcements are not the end of the story. They worry that an administration that has effectively been following a herd immunity strategy, or sheltering the elderly and vulnerable but encouraging everyone else to get back to normal, is drawing the wrong conclusion from the vaccine optimism.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, for example, warns that another 150,000 people could die by March if nothing changes in the U.S. response.
For Hotez, that means repeating his demand for more aggressive social distancing measures nationwide, a demand he has been making all year. But the proximity of vaccines in the coming months makes it a much less daunting prospect to stay home and away from danger.
“Just do this for four months,” he said. “Stop with the crappy ideology, the freedom ideology, and discrediting maths. Just hang on for four months. Keep your father alive, your mother alive, your mother alive, your brother alive, your sister alive, then get vaccinated, and you can have a normal life after that.”
Either way, Trump has a rare bit of good news that can raise funds to meet his campaign bills and burnish a legacy that he will need if he is serious about a 2024 run.
